Luxury hotel stays are coming back this year, predict some of the largest US owners, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“Rumors of the demise of luxury are greatly exaggerated,” said Frits van Paasschen, president and chief executive of hotel operator Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.
“I think you’re going to see luxury pop in 2010,” said Minaz Abji, executive vice president of hotel owner Host Hotels Resorts, which owns 112 hotels as a real estate investment trust. “The booking pace for ’11 and ’12 is holding up very well.”
No lodging segment has suffered as much as luxury hotels.
From 2007 to 2009, occupancy in US luxury hotels declined by 10.4 percentage points to 62.2 percent, according to Smith Travel Research. But reduced rates helped soften the blow.
Some of that occupancy rebound can be attributed to low rates that will slip even more this year, says the Journal.
PKF foresees average rates at US luxury hotels declining by 1.9 percent this year to $237. In 2011, luxury rates will rise by two percent, PKF says.
Experts such as Bjorn Hanson, an associate professor of hospitality at New York University, however, predict it will take seven to 10 years for luxury hotels to again post the occupancy and rates they boasted at the market’s peak.
By David Wilkening
